Scars of Love
by The Head Reviewer
Summary: Blair x Joker. Blair's stint in Gotham proves to have much more impact on her than she expected. She's just dying to know who the Joker really is. Could anyone ever love such a monster?


_Disclaimer: I don't own anything. RIP Heath._

Gotham City reminds Blair strongly of Chicago and the dangerous city deals with bank robberies and mobsters on a daily basis. Of course, the masked vigilante, Batman, adds to the whole mysterious theme the city has going on. Blair decides that New York is not for her nor is Paris and decides to head off to a city that is almost like its own country, managing to slip under the national radar yet have to much action going on.

Upon entering Gotham, Blair is greeted by Bruce Wayne, the handsome billionaire. Blair knows how influential her father is but it isn't until she meets Bruce Wayne that she is truly grateful for all this connections. She smiles gracefully and shakes his hand while coyly asking about Rachel Dawes. She sees the pinkness that tinges the playboy's cheeks and laughs cheerfully. Bruce decides that this Blair Waldorf knows a lot more about him than he thinks.

Blair meets the beautiful Rachel Dawes and notices the way Bruce stares at her. She also can't help but notice the way Rachel looks at Harvey Dent and the way his arm remains protectively around her waist. The whole thing reeks of a complex love triangle and she smirks as she takes sips from her champagne. The party is fun enough as Blair floats through the elite of Gotham and manages to charm them easily. The bulk of them seem to be new money and later learns that old money usually suggests being part of a mob family.

Her first months in Gotham are peaceful enough, crimes that she's used to being from New York but it seems some things go deeper than Ponzi schemes and embezzlement. The mobsters and gangsters play hard or go home and Blair wonders how many deaths are covered up. Blair makes the shocking discovery of who Batman really is and Rachel is able to confirm her suspicions. Blair then decides to confront Batman himself but finds herself being heavily guarded from stepping outside the safety of the building due to the Joker's new reign of terror.

She witnesses Rachel Dawes almost getting killed by the Joker. She sees the Joker for the first time that night and shivers as he looks much scarier than he does on TV. There's his messy green hair and his tacky purple suit. His face is the most memorable though. The white face paint to the dark circles of black around his eyes. She can't tear her eyes from his mouth though. The over exaggerated smile carved onto his face, the wounds scarred and puffy. The red face paint highlighting the permanent smile etched onto his face combined with his tongue which flops out every so often intrigues her more than it scares her. Of course she's freaked out as hell but there's something about the scars...

Blair screams when the Joker lets Rachel fall out the window. The way Batman- Bruce - hurls himself after her makes her see how much Bruce loves Rachel. On the Joker's way out, he catches her eye. He doesn't smile manically or laugh like he did with the others. Instead, he says in a gruff voice, "What are you looking at?" In the fifteen minutes the Joker spent terrorizing party guests, the way he asks her that single question seems like its coming from a completely different man. Blair watches as he makes his way out of the building, shooting at the sky, laughing in his usual psychotic way. Blair doesn't realize until after he's gone and the party guests seem to have calmed down that she finds herself clenching tightly on a Joker playing card.

--

Blair finds work that constantly hurls her into the whole scene where the action is going on. No, she doesn't handle criminals like Rachel and Harvey or fight that at night to the response of a light in the sky like Bruce but investigates. She investigates what killed the victims. She could have never thought in a million years that she would end up doing autopsies but she does. In New York, the thought of beef tartar was enough to make her want to spew but in Gotham, she felt like a new person. She examines the most gruesome of bodies; bodies that have been mutilated and murdered. She becomes an expert quickly and it seems like there are more and more bodies as the Joker continues with his master plan.

Then one day, she finds herself at the crime scene of a murder of a Mafia member- a pretty high ranking one - and finds the whole area littered with Joker playing cards. Some are burned, like the Mafia member's body while others still flutter to the ground. Blair looks up at the gray, dull sky as thunder claps and thinks she hears a laugh far off in the distance. She doesn't feel much sympathy for the Mafia guy who has probably killed people. Have gotten people killed is more likely but Blair's heart aches at all the innocent people who find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time.

--

One night, Blair sits in autopsy ward of the hospital, alone. She hears footsteps and quickly checks to see if there are any intruders. Suddenly, being in a room with only a dead person seems a lot scarier than it is. There is silence and Blair decides that she must be hearing things when she turns around to find herself face to face with him. The one and only Joker. Blair opens her mouth to scream but nothing comes out.

"Well hello, beautiful," he smiles widely. His smile looks extra big with his scars. "What's wrong, darling? Scared?" He laughs crazily.

Blair shakes her head. "I'm not scared. Wh-what happened to your face?" She manages to choke out.

"I'm glad you ask." The Joker starts to walk closer towards her and Blair takes steps back. She's bumping into all sorts of equipment until finally she's pushed up against a wall. "Well you see, once upon a time-"

"No. I don't want another of your stories. I want the truth."

The Joker looks puzzled. He grabs Blair's cheeks. He pulls out a knife. Then very carefully, he places it at the edge of her mouth so that it is just inside her mouth. "Well, let's see. The truth isn't nearly as fun."

Blair feels her heart beating strongly against her chest about to jump out. "Well, if Ms. Blair Waldorf wants the truth. I guess she'll get it! When I was a little boy. A mere teenager, I got involved with the wrong crowd. And when my father found out, he wasn't happy. Nope, not happy at all. And he punished me. Oh how he punished me." The Joker laughs momentarily. "And for the rest of that entire school year, I remained grouchy just because of that punishment. Well, good ole dad wanted to cheer me up and took me to a baseball game. I care none for the stupid sport and he wanted to know what was wrong. I think I should add at this point he was a horrible drunk and after the game he grabbed me and threw me against a wall. Then grabbing using the broken end of a glass bottle, he took me and said," the Joker's voice went deep as he imitated his father. "Why so serious? Let's put a smile on that face."

At this point, Blair was shaking violently. Her shaking caused the knife to press into her mouth but she didn't care. She scrunched her eyes closed, expecting to die. She felt the knife withdraw and she opens her eyes. A few tears escape and is surprised to see that the Joker's eyes look watery. Relieved, she sighed. However, her breathing remained unsteady.

"Don't cry. Sh, sh, sh," the Joker soothes. "See this is why everyone should be more happy like me! I'm the happiest guy in the world," he goes on but Blair sees the tiny tears that escape his eyes. Blair lets out a sob that she's been trying to suppress.

"Ah, now you're annoying me. This suit wasn't cheap, you know."

"Don't kill me," Blair chokes.

"Hm. I'll tell you what. Tonight, since I'm feeling extra nice I'll let you run free. You seem like a pretty little thing. But next time, don't expect me to be as nice." He lets Blair fall to the floor. She does so and as soon as she looks up, he's gone.

--

Then comes the day where everything ends. It's the final night full of more havoc than she can take. She left New York to find peace only to end up in the deadliest place of them all. The hospitals are no longer safe, after one was blown up, both Rachel Dawes and Harvey Dent are dead. As soon as she gets off that goddamn boat she was trapped on, she decides to leave. She spent that entire hour believing she was going to be blown into bits and the next day, she decides it's time to say goodbye to Gotham City.

The newspaper headlines vary from: THE JOKER FINALLY IN ARKHAM. PEACE IN GOTHAM ONCE AGAIN. to BATMAN: HERO OR KILLER? THE LAST STRAW. and finally, HARVEY DENT DIES A HERO. CITY MOURNS LOSS.

Blair packs up a copy of each newspaper and can't wait until she's back in New York.

--

In New York, she's greeted happily but of course no one knows about what's going on in Gotham as they are still under the radar. New York is still fed up with pointless news and Blair sneers at Jenny who's obsessed with Page Six and making her way onto to it. She doesn't forget her time in Gotham and after being in New York for a month she decides its time to leave. New York doesn't to her justice as she had hoped. She's on the next flight to Gotham within the next twelve hours.

--

Gotham seems to be doing well, Batman still on hiatus but the city slowly rebuilding itself without its watchful protector. The crime rates are at an all time low. First, Blair visits Bruce Wayne. He still can't get over Rachel Dawes and Blair feels there's something about Harvey Dent that she's not telling him. She shrugs it off and wonders aloud if he'll ever continue being Batman. He says that one day, if there's ever a time when Batman's needed, he'll be there.

However, the most surprising thing Blair does during her visit back to Gotham is visit Arkham. The security is top-notch but after much persuasion on her behalf, she manages to get in. Batman, even though taking the blame for murders committed by Two-Face, is still regarded a hero and is dragged into being there with Blair as she ventures into Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane.

She doesn't know what she's doing and she regrets doing so. They reach his cell which is guarded more than any other cell. The guards are skeptical whether to let her see him and consider if she's insane. Blair finally manages to get a meeting with the Joker. It's scheduled for one o'clock that afternoon and she'll have exactly fifteen minutes.

When she finally gets to see him, they're in a small room. Blair knows even though they've probably searched him multiple times to make sure he's harmless, he has a knife cleverly hidden somewhere. Batman and the guards watch from the other side, a bullet proof glass wall in between them. The Joker's hands are cuffed and he wears a sickly orange jumpsuit. The most interesting however is, he appears clean. Clean in the sense that all the paint from his face is washed off and his hair is free of its green hue. His hair is blond. The scars are still there but they're not bright red and flesh colored.

"What do you want?" he asks, bored. "I'm beginning to regret sparing your life. If only I had known you'd follow me around like a lost puppy. So unless you're here to help me escape, I'd leave now if I were you."

Tears well in Blair's eyes and she feels sorry for him.

"I once knew a girl like you. She felt sorry for me as well. Her name was Harley. Harley Quinn."

Blair stands up and pushes the small desk in between them to the side. She manages to get the Joker to stand up as well. She stares at him face to face and says, "I'm sorry about what happened to her," Blair says softly.

"Who? Harley?"

"Your wife," Blair whispers. "I'm sorry that she was killed. I'm sorry that some mobsters took her and killed her."

The Joker's mouth is wide open. "What wife? I was never married. Love is for idiots." He's laughing again, manically and a tear falls down his cheek while he's shaking his head in fake crazy laughter.

Blair then leans up and kisses him on the cheek, where the tear was. A hand rests on the side of his face and she traces his scars. And for the remaining nine minutes, she cries. She cries, her fingers resting where his scars are. She cries for all the people he killed and his wife. Then, she cries for him. And in those nine minutes, there is no sudden change of heart in the Joker. He doesn't vow to no longer kill or be all righteous and good. No, those nine minutes don't change him but they change her. She walks out of Arkham feeling the need to go back to New York and claim her love to another lost soul. She doesn't get to see afterward the few tears that the Joker cries silently to himself.

**A/N: Okay, so this has been bugging me for days but it didn't turn out quite as I hoped. IDK. I had the whole image of Blair facing the Joker make-up free and touching his Glasgow smile scars but everything else was improved. LOL. Liked how I threw Harley in there for all the die-hard Joker fans? Like, not just the movie but the actual comics and animated series? Also, although the origin of the Joker is 100% clear (from what I know about the DC Universe) but his wife was killed. By mobsters too, I think. If I remember clearly, they used him for their dirty work and then acid got on him turning his face white and mouth red and hair green and all that. Man, Ledger was the best Joker ever played. Regardless of all the factors, Heath did the best just portraying the Joker. **


End file.
